


Splinter

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Foxtrot [10]
Category: Stargate Atlantis, The Dollhouse - Fandom
Genre: Crossover
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-13
Updated: 2016-03-13
Packaged: 2018-05-26 11:53:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6237568
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: any. any, the sharp words splintering the night. Foxtrot John Sheppard and Victor Anthony Ceccoli finally confront who they both are. Set in Season 5.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Splinter

When Ceccoli arrived, escorted by three security marines, he looked confused. When he stepped into the room and saw the chair and Sheppard beside it, he went white.  
  
"Sir, I can explain –"  
  
"Rodney, Zelenka, Lorne, you're dismissed." Sheppard's voice cracked like a whip. "I'll handle this."  
  
Evan couldn't name the emotion in Sheppard's eyes, something sharp like fury but jagged at the edges, like fear. He nodded and trotted for the door, beckoned for the security marines to follow him. Zelenka followed right away. Rodney followed more slowly.  
  
The door hissed shut.  
  
Rodney darted into the next room and plugged his datapad into a port. He shooed the marines and Zelenka away with a wave of his hand, and at Evan's look, they went.  
  
Rodney eyed Evan, and then said, "Fine. You can stay."  
  
It was a matter of moments before he had the room's security feed pulled up on his datapad. It was a few more moments before he had the sound patched in as well. Evan knew they were spying, that Sheppard guarded his privacy jealously, but Evan was supposed to know everything vital going on in the city, so he watched, and he listened.  
  
The sharp words splintering the night made no sense at all.  
  
"You re-enlisted as a marine to build a damn imprint chair?"  
  
Rodney made a wordlessly smug sound. Evan peered at the chair. He remembered the time Sheppard and Weir had been imprinted with other personalities. Was that what the chair was for? Why would Ceccoli have built something like that? And how did he even know about imprinting? Evan's mind spun, and he had to force himself to focus on the scene unfolding on Rodney's datapad.  
  
"I came here because it was the only place I could stay still long enough to work on a cure," Ceccoli was protesting. He wrapped his arms around himself; he looked small, afraid, even though he was bulkier than Sheppard. "There was nowhere on Earth they wouldn't have found me. Nowhere. It's why you came here, right?"  
  
"You could've built the chair on Earth! Alpha did it!"  
  
"Alpha got caught and sent to the attic. We all got caught and sent to the attic and it was a miracle we escaped!"  
  
Sheppard crossed the room in a few angry strides. He scooped up the hairdryer-thing. "What's this?"  
  
"It can wipe and imprint remotely even without active architecture," Ceccoli said.  
  
Sheppard dropped the thing like it had burned him. "How? That's impossible." He backed away from it, wild and terrified.  
  
"They imprinted me with Topher once. To try and infiltrate the DC Dollhouse."  
  
Sheppard spun to face him. "Is that your grand master plan, then? To take this - this _thing_ and get your revenge?"  
  
"No!" Ceccoli looked horrified. "I just wanted to fix myself, and Sierra too. I can take the chair apart and bring it home in small boxes. I made imprint wedges so we can whittle down our imprints and store them but we have them just in case. Some of the imprints are real people, and if we can find bodies for them, coma patients maybe –"  
  
Sheppard picked up one of the things that looked like a raw hard drive. "You made these?"  
  
"Like I said, they imprinted me with Topher once." Ceccoli edged closer. "I could help you, sir. Get rid of all the other imprints for you –"  
  
"I am an imprint."  
  
Ceccoli stopped dead. "What?"  
  
"John Sheppard is an imprint."  
  
Something ugly flashed across Ceccoli's face, and he uncoiled, stood up straighter. "Then who is Foxtrot, really?"  
  
"His name is Joe. He and the real John Sheppard met in college."  
  
Evan's throat closed. Joe.

Rodney's smug expression faded. His brow furrowed, and he squinted at Sheppard, studying him closely. For what? Signs of a stranger?  
  
Ceccoli looked caught off guard. "The real John Sheppard?"  
  
"John Sheppard is - was - a real person. His father was Patrick Sheppard, head of Sheppard utilities. A Rossum backer, obviously."  
  
"Rossum," Rodney breathed. Evan glanced at him, curious.  
  
"What do you mean, obviously?" Ceccoli asked.  
  
"How do you think a facility as large as a dollhouse went undetected with all the power it required? An engineer from Sheppard Utilities made sure the places were completely green and made no mark on the local power grid," Sheppard said.  
  
Ceccoli started to reach for the hairdryer-thing.  
  
Sheppard caught his wrist. "I didn't know, all right?"  
  
"But you know now."  
  
"I do," Sheppard agreed. "But Atlantis needs me. And I need her. I - we - are only safe from the dollhouse as long as we're here in this galaxy. If I'm not in charge every second of every day, someone will realize something is wrong, and they'll send me back, and the dollhouse will take me, and when they realize I'm broken, they'll send me to the attic."  
  
What they were saying was madness, but Evan could hear the fear in their voices when they talked about the dollhouse and the attic.  
  
"You've gone home on leave. The dollhouse didn't take you then?"  
  
"They didn't look close enough," Sheppard said. "When Atlantis forced my composite event, she made some upgrades. They can't fully wipe me unless I let them. Didn't she do the same thing for you?"  
  
"Atlantis? What are you talking about?" Ceccoli backed up a step. "Echo taught me how to access my old imprints. I never had a composite event."  
  
"You don't need the chair," Sheppard said. "It's dangerous. Destroy it. If you want help getting fixed, if you want the other imprints removed and stored, Atlantis can do it for you. Just sit in the control chair."  
  
"The imprint chair is useful, too." Ceccoli bit his lip. "Sometimes before a mission, I load up on a few extra skills - physics, chemistry, math."  
  
Sheppard's eyes narrowed dangerously. "You what?"  
  
Ceccoli tossed his head. "Don't tell me you've never accessed your other imprints in an emergency situation."  
  
"Of course I have," Sheppard snarled. "That doesn't mean I download random crap into my brain."  
  
Ceccoli fingered a metal chain with a series of USB drives on it. "You know, a lot of the scientists on this expedition, the bright ones - Rossum had them scanned to form the basis for some of our imprints."  
  
Rodney made a choking noise.  
  
"I know," Sheppard said, low and vicious.  
  
"So what, then?" Ceccoli crossed his arms over his chest, lifted his chin in challenge. "You're just going to hide in this galaxy forever, and Joe, the real owner of that body, will be stuck riding shotgun? Because John Sheppard is too damn important to the expedition?" The disgust in his voice made Evan flinch.  
  
"I'm not that John Sheppard, not anymore, not since I sat in that chair. I'm Foxtrot," he said. "John Sheppard forms the majority of my identity, yes, but I am also Joe and all of the other imprints as well. Foxtrot isn't a name, though. It's a designation. A damn serial number. John Sheppard is the name I've chosen for myself."  
  
Evan suspected that Joe might not agree with Sheppard's sentiments.  
  
"Are you really only Anthony Ceccoli? Or are you Victor?"  
  
Ceccoli looked away. "You sound like Echo."  
  
"You call her Echo," Sheppard pointed out. "What's her real name?"  
  
"Her body originally belonged to Caroline." Ceccoli's tone was grudging. "But after her composite event, she became something - more."  
  
"We're all something more," Sheppard said. "The dollhouse tried to make us something less, and they failed." He reached out, tugged the chain of USB drives out of Ceccoli's hands. "Don't make yourself into something inhuman."  
  
Ceccoli closed his eyes and swallowed hard. "We're already inhuman."  
  
"No. More than human. Not like other people, definitely, but every part of us is human."

Ceccoli opened his eyes. "How do you stand it? Being out here alone? Back home I have Sierra, and Echo has Ballard, sort of."  
  
Evan remembered Sheppard standing in his doorway, asking him for something dangerous. _I'm so alone I can't stand it._  
  
Sheppard's expression turned closed, guarded. "I'm never alone. I have my team." He stepped back, turned away. "Destroy the chair, Victor, and if you want we'll never speak of this again."  
  
Ceccoli nodded, and Sheppard swept out of the room.  
  
Evan and Rodney flinched when they heard the door hiss open. Sheppard walked right past the room they were hiding in without so much as a glance. Rodney stared at him as he passed, open-mouthed and wordless. The datapad almost fell from his fingers. Evan caught it before it hit the floor and made a sound.  
  
On the screen, Ceccoli picked up a screwdriver and started to disassemble the chair.


End file.
